The Barbarian Invasions (2003)

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

The Barbarians in this film are many things: you hear the phrase from a man describing 9/11 in the context of a larger world view, as though it were the first time the Roman Empire had been invaded on its home soil by Barbarians, and it is akin to that (a lesser power connecting on a punch against a greater power, killing it through sheer will and patience) that steers the narrative in this work by French-Canadien Denys Arcand, a sequel to "Decline of the American Empire." An intellectual, who spent his life basically doing whatever he wanted, is dying of cancer. He's an idealist, a socialist, who despises what his son does for a living (his son is a capitalist). As a socialist, he should die in a bed in a public hospital surrounded by people he doesn't know... no, of course not, he should die at his home surrounded by people he loves, but he never cultivated those relationships to the extent that anyone feels a great need to be there for him in his dying hours. His son, persuaded by the one woman who loves him enough to do something for him (his estranged wife), pays them to be there for him, pays an old family friend with connections to narcotics to feed him heroine, pays former students to come pay him a visit and validate his lectures. In each case, this ironic twist (all these socialists are such whores... they don't want to be there for each other, but they all have a price)... this ironic twist feeds into the film, until the money fades into shadow and you don't even consider it anymore. All of the great ideas these intellectuals have, these 'isms'... his son's fiancée explains how ridiculous 'love' is as a reason for being with someone (her own parents divorced when she was three)... yet, she feels jealousy when the family friend is around, a stunningly beautiful woman you could never really be with due to her drug problems. Everyone in this movie is afraid of their feelings... and by the end of the movie they've essentially been paid to feel... well, everyone except the man with the money, the son, the "prince of the barbarians"... who is doing everything out of love for his mother... in the beginning...This film is like paint being mixed, then applied to a dry canvas, then transformed into a beautiful twilight shot of a lake, and dear friends, and a life well lived... somehow, in spite of itself.

You know those movies where a group of friends get together and the film consists of a series of conversations between them regarding their lives, loves and many interminglings? Well, take one of those and make the characters completely unlikeable, thin and not remotely interesting and you've got The Decline of the American Empire. Now take those worthless characters, age them twenty years and make one of them dying and you've got The Barbarian Invasions. Invasions is slightly more bearable thanks to a surprisingly rich, emotional performance by Marie-Josee Croze (surprising because someone of her skill shouldn't have the misfortune of being in a film like this), but both films are horrid experiences overall. You can feel writer/director Denys Arcand sitting behind the pages, writing these characters and smiling with delight over how witty and bold he finds their pattering on, but all that comes out is forced, pseudo-intellectual garbage.There's a disturbing irony to it all because the film glazes over these dark, significant themes like infidelity and drug abuse but Arcand's approach is so flat and vanilla that none of it gets explored with even the slightest bit of depth or intelligence. I have no idea how this film received such high praise from critics foreign and domestic. You can't live in a world where a true auteur such as Arnaud Desplechin is crafting ensemble character dramas that are so vivid and fascinating, and then look at this garbage and think it's anything worth watching.

An intelligent, witty, barbed, but still emotional film about; death, family, friends, class, intellectuals, hard headed capitalists vs. soft headed socialists and more. A sequel (17 years later!) to 'Decline of the American Empire'. the film finds the same characters gathering together around the impending death from cancer of their Falstaffian friend Remy. While it's a bit 'prettified' about the pain and indignities of dying from cancer it's honest and funny and true about the compromises we make in life, the fact that few of us ever live up to our dreams and ideals, and even when we do, we sacrifice something in the process. A film where the final reconciliations feel earned and complex, not Hollywood easy. And where irony dances gracefully with sentiment.

'Les Invasions Barbares' is a simple film about a man who is dying from cancer, and in his final days he and his family & friends reflect upon their lives. I think that writer / director Denys Arcand manage to do something pretty impressive here through very small means. After the first 15-20 minutes of this movie I thought it was close to crap. I didn't like the pace, the way it looked or any of the characters. But as the story slowly moves forward, Arcand proves that he & his actors have the ability to change my mind completely. Simply by using intelligence, humor & compassion they turn the characters into human beings that I can recognize and relate to, and they show us that "people are people". Deep down we're not very different from each other, no matter where or when we live and die. And at the end I was left with the reinforced notion that even though we try very hard to fill our lives through various activities & distractions like work, sex, art, drugs, politics, religion ... when the final days are upon us there's only one thing that really matters, the relationship we have with our family and (if we're lucky) a handful of close friends. My impression is that this is very much a movie for grownups. I don't think I could've appreciated it when I was in my teens or 20's. But if you're young today you could make a note to watch this when you reach something between 35-40. Maybe like me you'll get something good out of it.